Week 14: Thing That Drifted Ashore

I stumbled upon this Junji Ito short story. It's about a massive, tubular, sea creature that washes ashore. It is composed of rotting flesh and looks to be an ancient serpent from the deepest trenches of the sea. People from all over are compelled to see the gigantic being, even if they hate the ocean. Thing That Drifted Ashore is similar to Amigara Fault as it shows people being being compelled by an unseen force. I find it more terrifying, however, because the ocean is a very deep fear of mine, especially the dark sea and whatever comes out of it. One of the characters says of the creatures of the deep, "it felt like they were beings that had been forgotten by all the universe" and I feel it is very accurate to my feelings of the deep sea. More so, Thing That Drifted Ashore emphasizes the more Lovecraftian aspects of the sea by hypothesizing the depth and shear size of it. At the end of the story, it is revealed that the thing has been responsible for several deaths at sea and zombie-esque bodies pour out from its stomach. A character says of the people in its stomach, "what do you suppose they saw in the deep ocean through that transparent skin..."

Also check out Alfred Kubin

Also Golden Kamuy was interesting. At first it seemed like it was a normal shoujo manga until we learned more about the Ainu people through it. I really liked that aspect of it and it made me want to read it.

Week 13: Presentations & Silver Spoon

I had a feeling this art style looked familiar, and to find out it was also the creator of Full Metal Alchemist was validating and interesting. I only read 3 chapters, but Silver Spoon seems to be about an agricultural high school in Japan focused on preparing young adults for their specializations in the farming industry... Therefore a concept I'm completely disconnected with and frankly, would not choose to read. However, more generally, it is established early on that the main character, Hachiken, is confused by his future. He feels insecure that he doesn't have a concrete dream or path like his other classmates. This is a common feeling when approaching a more transitional period in life; there are a lot of unknowns.

Present with in the hatchery with the egg production explanation, the chicken meat, Tamako, and the Equestrian club, is the subversion of expectations. This is an attitude that the author imposes on Hachiken as he makes a conscious effort to "not base his judgements off of his preconceptions." This same attitude is also imposed on the reader as it's also a delivery device for a lot of the humor.

As far as I know, Silver Spoon has already been adapted into an anime, but ideally I would make it into an anime as well. The manga provides all of the necessary information, like the characters' motivations, appearances, etc. Locations are very clear, too. There's no guess work involved and that's why an anime adaptation would be the easiest and clearest form of media. However, in my adaptation I would like to make Hackiken's motivations clearer. He can still be a conflicted young adult, there's good, generic conflict there. But I want a real source for his apprehension, and why of all places did he choose an agricultural high school? I would make these changes in an effort to create less of a slice of life story and more of a drama.

Week 12: Junji Ito Resources & Presentation Details

Hi, here's some resources for Junji Ito's work:

Junji Ito Archive
Tomie
Gyo
Uzumaki: Low Quality

And I have a google drive folder of some choice scans that I made while I was researching for this presentation. It contains some images of Gyo, Uzumaki, Tomie, Dissolving Classroom, and Shiver. Feel free to flip through (using your Ringling email) to get a feel for Ito's artistic style. Some panels were scanned due to their notable dialogue as well. Here's a link to my presentation.

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And to finish this post off here's more about the alternative Japanese artist that I mentioned at the end of my presentation:

Suehiro Maruo is one of the more classic gore artist. He depicts scenes more inspired by eroguro (erotic gore), in a style reflective of the muzan-e subgenre of the ukiyo-e period. His art and story was used to make the 1992 animated film Midori: Shōjo Tsubaki which showed scenes of rape, violence, and graphic depictions of circus performers.
Shintaro Kago's popularized work is more along the lines of something I like to call "pop-gore." It is vibrantly colored and inventive like a theme park. His familiar graphic design images almost cannot be taken as seriously as they're more so an assembly of broken shapes of viscera vs. his more brutal, personal gore manga work.
Takato Yamamoto has been one of my favorites since high school, a lot of these artist have, however Yamamoto's attention to minute detail has always struck me. Dead eyes and pale figures are the primary subjects of his work. Bondage is a common theme in his work, as are ribcages and other significant parts of the skeleton. Stringy entrails are often traced around Yamamoto's canvas to encapsulate the tortured subjects. His style of detail is reminiscent of Gustav Klimt.
And finally, Kaneoya Sachiko. She is the youngest on this list; a very contemporary artist. Using a 50s Japanese manga style, she experiments with erotic visuals like taboo subjects between men and animals and medical horror. In her art book, she explains how her real goal is to depict the little moments that are attractive about men, such as the small parts of skin that are exposed when wearing a collared shirt. She explores a true perversion that I've always appreciated.

Week 11: Censorship & Uzumaki, Tomie

During this week, we primarily talked about censorship in Japan. In continuing to research for my Junji Ito presentation, I read Uzumaki and Tomie.

On Uzumaki

Uzumaki is a story about a town affected by the natural phenomena of the spiral. While utilizing the manipulation of natural phenomena as a horror technique, the core of it's narrative is gradually revealed to be more cosmic, and overwhelming as the story concludes.

Beginning with the dispersal of Shuichi’s father's ashes; the town becomes afflicted by the constant torture of spiral symbolism. Shuichi's father's initial obsession with spirals began it all, and it is a theme I noticed in Ito's work. A character will often become unusually obsessed with something until it kills them. This often leads to a series of self-mutilation that can only end in the painful, and ominous character’s death. This then spreads to their loved ones, as it did to Shuichi's mother, and produces a great paranoia. This paranoia also leads to death for those afflicted as it's the only way to escape horrors of the body. In a grander analysis, Ito uses this to create scenarios of mass hysteria. Along with these themes, I found that scapegoating was a minor theme often used in Uzumaki. Because of the internal torment that the character's experience, such as the lead character Kirie, other characters are quick to turn on one another. Azami is another case where there was a centralized villainization of one character, she was seen as a source of people's problems, an outlet for their anger. Again, this all contributes to the eventual breakdown of the society that Ito is often depicting.

As previously mentioned, the story shifts in the last ~5 chapters from an obsessive compulsive tale about the breakdown of a town to a rather melancholic, Lovecraftian horror of overwhelming proportions. The source of the town's obsession about spirals is revealed to be an eternal loop that has happened before, and it will continue to happen. Found underground; a mass of twisted bodies and canyon-like structures form a sort of hellscape that Kirie and Shuichi stumble upon under the center of the town. Unable to comprehend the magnitude of what they are seeing, Kirie and Shuichi decide to submit to the spiral, only to continue the pattern. The ending of Uzumaki brought upon an atmosphere of grief and an acceptance of eternity.

On Tomie

Tomie was Ito's debut manga about a girl who comes back to haunt her killers that covered up her death. Told through a series of short stories, we are first introduced to Tomie as a young high school girl that is attracted to her teacher. After being rejected by him during a field trip, she is pushed off a cliff's edge. Her body tumbles to the bottom. Thinking she is dead, her classmates panic, and with the guidance of her teacher; decide to cut up Tomie's body and dispose of her in 30-some different ways. When they begin cutting, she is still alive, however. 

Throughout the manga, Tomie is eternally reborn every time she is killed. She is so beautiful that eventually her admirers are compelled by a deep obsession to kill her by desecrating her body and disposing of the remains. She regenerates and clones herself from her remains; producing many Tomies. Tomie is basically cursed to live how she died. I find that I think about Tomie on a dark road while driving at night. It evokes a feeling like that, true dread and mystery.

Week 10: Cyberpunk + Neon Genesis Evangelion

I've always liked mecha animes, I started with Gundam Wing years ago. Looking back, still, I can't confidentially say why I have an affinity for mecha as it's the most distant of what I usually like in my anime; as it tends to be hyper masculine and one-note. I do like the possibilities that robots and the technology offers to the story. But if we look at the genre as a whole, sci-fi and further more cyberpunk, we can see more animes utilizing the visual conventions of the genre to discuss different things these days.

Cyberpunk in Japanese media often opens up a large library of alternative ideas about politics, economy, and sexuality due to it's future setting and technology. For example, Ghost in the Shell discusses themes of what it means to be human through a robot heroine in a future struggling with the political nuances that come along with advanced technology. Cowboy Bebop emphasizes the lonely, existential dread of humanity that happens upon an intergalactic backdrop. Psychopass discusses how an integrated morality system controlled by a computer is inherently flawed and how it affects society. As much as I love mecha animes of the late 90s where robots punch each other, cyberpunk anime largely talks about capitalism and how technologies affect various social classes. Even Astro Boy spoke to Japan's greater need to aspire in mechanics and electronics.

Neon Genesis Evangelion is a great example of a mecha that speaks about the errors in human communication and the economy & politics of a war-torn Japan, all with religions overtones. Additionally, the Evas, AKA the mechs, are awesome. Their designs are still one of the most original I've seen from a mech anime in years. The Evas being inspired by human biology, simulating bleeding and such, causes the fights to be incredibly brutal. Their deaths and battle cries are not just mechanical, it is viscerally painful.

Week 9: Banana Fish & Junji Ito's Shiver

I read a bit of Banana Fish, it feels like a detective drama that I can imagine appeals to female audiences. However, I'm spending most of my time reading Junji Ito's work to prepare for my presentation.This week I read Shiver, a collection of short stories. In Used Record, the story takes a turn for the worse rather quickly. An enchanting record, later revealed to be a dead singer's death rattle, curses the carrier. This causes hysteria in small circles where people kill to obtain the record. Ito says he was inspired to create this story because of a small record shop he lived by in Nagoya. Used Record uses some conventions I talked about that Ito utilizes, but on a smaller scale. Fashion Model is just a visual feast of disgust.

Hanging Blimp was one of my favorites and I'll be talking about it during my presentation. It's about floating heads, dopplegangers of humans from below, that await to hang their helpless doubles. They moan their own names from the sky; searching for their human companions, all while having have dead expressions on their faces. This story felt melancholic because of the progression of the mass hysteria, as it affected personal groups of people like families. It feels like a commentary on how suicide affects people, as the Japan in the story was made aware of the floating heads after a series of copycat suicides kept happening.

The Long Dream is another great one, more Lovecraftian in nature, though, as it relies more on ideas than gore to instill terror. A man is afflicted with a disorder where he falls asleep, and as every dream passes, he feels it becomes longer even though it's only been a night in real-time. He begins to have dreams that feel as though they've lasted months, and they're often terrifying and unimaginable in nature. The man begs the doctor to help him not-sleep. This unsettling cycle begins to affect the man's appearance, and his wife, who is also sick but with a cancer, cannot recognize him. Eventually, the man turns into dust and fades away. The Long Dream was a specifically scary read because of it's discussion of "real time vs. subjective time" as Ito called it. To imagine being stuck in a dreamland, only to awake 8 hours later is beyond human imagination, and definitely worth a read.

Diversity of Gender & Sexuality in Japanese Media

on My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness 

Something that immediately resonated with me is how Nagata sources her feelings of loneliness from having to leave college and finding a place to belong. Nagata describes this tumultuous transition into adulthood in a way where I feel deeply empathetic. I've been struggling with this transition as well, and the distinction between "normal" people transitioning and people with mental disorders is how easy it is for "normal" people to recover from transitional events.

I have anxiety and depression, therefore disordered thoughts are interwoven into my mental framework as if they're normal. However Nagata's short but accurate description of disordered thinking, such as with rejection or trying hard enough, echoed my experiences. Furthermore, when she gets back on her feet in Chapter 2 but is still having anxious thoughts about her part time job not being good enough, it shows her disordered thinking creeping back.
Disordered, untrue, thoughts about yourself are easy to dismiss by a third party, but it is a thinking pattern so ingrained into someone with mental issues. Even when she's having sex with the call girl, her mind wanders to her anxiety! How relatable. Nagata's adventures in her mind are a great representation of mental illness and how they affect the mind and thus how we respond to events, like transitional periods into adulthood.

The art style of the manga is significant, too. The less rendered, doodle-like approach is something I enjoy but it is also effective in that it echoes the scattered mentality of the author and the content of the story.
And some more relatability: when Nagata describes her feelings of, let's say unfamiliarity, with being a woman by saying, "that somehow before I was me, I was a woman, Like I was scared of being overly defined by those expectations I guess." Again, I relate to this heavily as well because I do not strongly associate myself with being a woman. Partially because I don't like to be expected to do certain things and because it's never been an aspect of myself that I've identified with or considered a driving force of my being. Anyway, reading that line helped me properly formulate how I feel about being a "woman" in my own terms.

on My Brother's Husband (Vol. 1)

With My Brother's Husband, we are introduced to a series of diverse thoughts about family; beyond that of homosexuality, and redefining what a family can be. The ex-wife figure is interesting because she represents a new set of values, to co-parent peacefully and prioritize your children. Then there is the additional aspect that the father is a single dad raising a small girl.
The interactions between gay men and other people is normalized. And the emphasis placed on Kana's character is kind of genius because her inclusion requires the "complex" topics of homosexuality to be described in a kind, understanding, non-judgmental way so that Kana can understand. Kana's innocence when being confronted with something different is encouraging for her dad to see. This means that apprehensive audiences with their own prejudices, such as Kana's father, will learn to accept others as well.

Makato Shinkai

Shinkai Makato's artistic signature can be examined even in one of his earliest short films, Voices of A Distant Star. Aside from the technical feat required to produce this short, the structure of this short established a common central theme in Makato's future work: characters being separated by time and space. The central characters, a boy and a girl; often will try to communicate and connect but there is always an obstacle in the way. This is prevalent in Garden of Words with their communication being limited to meeting when it rains and their age gap. This is also seen in 5 Centimeters per Second; the two characters are separated by one of moving away, however a supplementary theme is communication through letters and later email. In these films, the characters push to be together but in the end, they cannot.  

There was a quite literal play of time and space in Voices of A Distant Star. Noboru must wait longer and longer to receive messages from Mikako as time dilation affects their messages. As he waits, he is in sort of a limbo, unable to know when even the next time dilation event will occur. I enjoyed the unpredictable nature of this theme used so literally.

Another theme in Makato's work is his play with the seasons. Using the seasons as a means to reflect the internal feelings of his characters, he treats the background as a secondary character on its own. Often, Makato will take pause and let the audience absorb the atmosphere of the scene, to truly feel what the characters are feeling. In Voices of a Distant Star, many times the background will just wash over the characters as an internal monologue is heard. This technique was further refined by Makato throughout his career. In Garden of Words, he often used this technique to show the contrast between nature and the modern demands of society. Contrasting the image of the park--seen as an escape--but revealing that it is surrounded by the metropolitan area of Tokyo; maintains that the characters know it is a temporary space, a fleeting moment.

To compare Makato's work with Ghibli's would be incongruent. Makato is focused on the interpersonal relationships between two people and furthering his themes by emphasizing small details within his backgrounds and such. Studio Ghibli, more often than not, undoubtedly focuses on ecological preservation through the lens of strong female characters, their relationship with nature, and the overall effect humanity has on the world. The themes focused between each studio are so different in scope and prominence. Makato's portrayal of emotion is often times too romanticized for my tastes versus Ghibli having a more idealized but honest approach to human emotion. It would perhaps be easier to compare Satoshi Kon and Makato Shinkai, but even then, where would we be going?

Visually although, Ghibli's animation is extremely loose and gestural, unlike Makato's tight movements. The backgrounds are lovely and hyperrealistic in Makato's work whereas Ghibli often chooses to throw a wash of color into the background, like a gouache painting. Both techniques are admirable.

Nausicaä, Ghibli, & Environmentalism

Miyazaki's Nausicaä of The Valley of The Wind is truly a visual feast. The intricate and fluid pen work, combined with Miyzaki's deep worldbuilding, brings the reader into complex world of the Tourmekia War and the flora and fauna that compose the subcontinent. Each stroke is purposeful and produces a powerful result. The nature areas are drawn with a certain fluidity that flows with the rest of the world whereas the mechanical man-made objects are rough and imposing. The battleships are obnoxious and violent; Miyazaki has always placed emphasis on mankind's involvement in the desecration of nature. However Nausicaä's wing glider is always presented in a similarly fluid manner, as she races through the plains and forests of the subcontinent. The detail in the mechanics of her glider are very particular as well. Miyazaki takes care to detail the nature and mechanical aspects of Nausicaä.     

From the beginning, we are introduced to the importance of the forest and its creatures to Nausicaä and how it's production of spores is deadly to humans although they have invented ways to safely cohabit. Later, Nausicaä meets Asbel, her male companion on this journey. Asbel believes that the forest may produce these spores because of the damage that humans have done to it in the past. Asbel's character is established to have been raised in a factory town, opposite of Nausicaä's more natural upbringing and interests. Miyazaki uses these two characters to again comment on the parallel between nature and humankind.

Burning the great tree was a great sacrifice, this again pushes Miyazaki's consistent theme of ecological preservation. The collective conscious of the forest composed of the insects that speak to Nausicaä is also interesting. Although it was made after Nausicaä, I viewed Princess Mononoke years ago and feel similarly about its message concerning ecological conservation. Humanity's interaction with nature and the true emotions expressed between the worlds is a concept ever-present in Miyazaki's work. The forests in both films (& manga) feel alive, but they have their own source of trauma and history. Specifically in Princess Mononoke, we see the forest heal from the damage done to it, but there are scars left behind in the forest.

Romance Manga & Oyasumi Punpun

On Tsubaki-chou Lonely Planet

Generally, romance is not the genre for me. I know within pages how everything will turn out and it ruins it for me. It feels like a less-smart and self-aware screwball comedy playing before my eyes.

To compare, however, with Slow Motion, the art is less detailed and has more ethereal backdrops.

On Slow Motion wo Mou Ichido

This is the manga from the image included above. I enjoyed the art style. There are detailed back drops, and sweetly drawn characters. The trivial plot is silly but I suppose something I can distantly relate to: an outcast being awkward and dissociated because of his interest in old media.

On Romance

(Oh and I read some yaoi too and it's... interesting and not my first deep dive into the genre. However, some mangas involved blatant rape, like Tatsuyuki Oyamoto the 4th. Interesting to say the least.)

All of this romance talk made me think about another manga I really love and read while it slowly was translated back around 2010; Oyasumi Punpun. And then I asked myself if it were considered romance? The story is driven by Punpun’s motivations of desire for Aiko throughout his young teenage life. He is depressed, unsatisfied, and insecure with his life and relationships, but the way Asano renders the story is incredibly realistic and believable. It depicts a coming-of-age story where the more mundane and sad aspects of human emotions are not forgotten. The main love interest, Aiko, commits suicide in the end because of the weight of life. Oyasumi Punpun is a slice of life/coming-of-age manga that only utilized its more romantic themes to speak to a greater concept about existentialism and mundanity.  

Week 4: Documentary Manga & some Junji Ito Research (Gyo, Amigara Fault, Dissolving Classroom)

Disaster Drawn by Hillary Chute

I've watched Barefoot Gen and respected how it handled the subject of the atomic bomb and have read I Saw It twice. I like Chute's analysis of using manga as a medium to present traditionally biographical subjects that one may see in books or documentaries. It is neither traditional, idealized manga nor is it gekiga. The comparison to Maus in this essay was unexpected but useful, as I've read that series and can understand why the documentation of tragedies was considered unusual until these two stories came along.

The interesting thing about Barefoot Gen is the delay in the telling of the bomb dropping. Nakazawa takes time to document his familial experiences. This engages the reader, provides the opportunity to compare the times prior to the bomb dropping to the aftermath, and doesn't make this story just about the bomb dropping. Throughout Nakazawa's work, his depiction of the bomb's aftermath is truly haunting. There is a sense of urgency and uncensored experience. There is no idealized reality here. It's funny that Spiegelman commented that Nakazawa's depiction's etched themselves into his brain, Maus had a similar effect on mine. 

*(I will say, though, this essay made leaps in judgement at times and it was hard to ascertain the point but thanks for the much-needed clarification in class.)

After reading I Saw It (twice):

I have never relished in the history of dropping the atomic bombs on Japan, I think we should be ashamed for our decisions made during wartime. However, I Saw It intensifies this feeling and, as Spiegelman said, etches it's imagery into your mind. I imagine what would happen if more people read something like this in order to prevent history from repeating itself. We seem to understand the Holocaust so well (then again, do we? Racism is still an intense subject in America and genocide still exists in many parts of Africa...) but we dissociate ourselves from the nuclear power we once held and further push using nuclear power as a weapon, not as a renewable resource.

Junji Ito Research

Along with looking into some "documentorial" mangas, I did a lot of research for my Junji Ito presentation. I've decided I would compare Japanese and American horror through the context of manga/comics and ask why there is not a well documented history for Japanese gore. I do believe the "a-bomb-panic" inspired one of Junji Ito's mangas and it is Gyo.

Generally, I have noticed that most of Ito's works discuss a breakdown of society through individual's who are punished for no discernible reason, such as in Dissolving Classroom or The Enigma of Amigara Fault. Gyo, however, analyzed mass hysteria, through disease, and its effect on the nation of Japan. Ito also chooses to form his own folklore rather than using traditional Japanese folklore themes.

I look forward to completing Tomie next and looking more into American pulp horror to compare.

Questions for the visiting Japanese Scholar:

1. I'm struggling to find sources about the history of Japanese horror, more specifically Japanese gore in comics. Are there any sources I can look to such as the shunga ukiyo-e prints of the Edo period? I'm just interested in finding out why Japanese horror is so brutal (and a lot of the time erotic) compared to American. Is it because of the American comic's code?

2. In that same line of questioning, was there a censorship period for manga in Japan?

Cigarette Girl & Mundanity

First Read
I really had to process this manga. I initially read half of it, put it down for 2 hours, and then read the last half. And then I slept on it for two days. I really couldn't make up my mind about it. The storylines are open, just like life, and it was kind of hard to accept that at first. I do like media that examines life through its most mundane elements and overlooked aspects. However in Cigarette Girl, I often had to look at the little details within the frame or re-read the panels to complete the joke or story. Then I would find some sort of satisfaction from these character's lives.

But at the end of the day, these characters are in the middle class, lonely, single, and floating through life. So ultimately; pretty relatable. Therefore I question why this was such a hard manga for me to connect to. I guess we all want to find media, even with the slightest bit of an idealized reality. I respect Cigarette Girl and think I'll give it a second read, because Mundanity is valid, dammit!

Matsumoto is definitely telling a story here, through this lonely middle class of children raised after WWII. He raises some questions about expectations of marriage and relationships. Early on, in the story Naruko Tsurumaki's Love (my favorite), there was a hint of commentary on a generational divide.

Second Read
I suppose this was a tough read initially because I actually do relate to these characters so much that it's hard to be confronted with such a "mirror image" of aspects of my life in a manga. I don't mind stories without happy endings, there's no need. But the lack of closure I felt upon my initial reading of Cigarette Girl was a struggle to reconcile with. I wouldn't say it was depressing, more so melancholic or lonely. Cigarette Girl showcased a niche aspect of life that we all experience, but don't talk about. It showed that people, at the core, really don't change. People just adapt. That's life, and it's really about being decent enough to get by.

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Just a note on some points made in class: I was rather frustrated by the discussion that ensued over Cigarette Girl. As I said, I feel the manga had a lot to offer in terms of examining the overlooked aspects of our lives. I think it's important to take in media that is not always idealized and escapist, with an open mind. In the case of Cigarette Girl, I believe it helps ground us and our own mundane lives and managing our day to day expectations. It's important to talk about the niche aspects of life, I believe there's a lot to learn in slice of life pieces such as this (and Abandon the Old Tokyo). We can't continue to (excessively) glorify our media and then claim mental health and interpersonal relationships are overlooked and underrepresented, can we? Maybe I'm biased because I respect media literacy, but it's important to have an open mind about the media you consume so that we can continue to facilitate discussions on these overlooked aspects of life and relationships. 

Ayako & Presentation Topic

Junji Ito & his contribution to Gore Manga is my topic. This may fit during the Alternative Manga (too early ahhh!) or Contemporary Manga weeks. This would best fit in a Horror Manga section, however.

To begin I'd like to discuss the circumstances under which I read Ayako. I've liked some of Tezuka's past work (Metropolis, Astro Boy, Kimba) but was wary of reading a post-war manga. I was worried it would be too "masculine" or focused on wartime troubles or not have a good historical backing like that of Mizuki's Showa. Boy was I wrong. I read a scanlation of Ayako but would definitely add this to my personal collection because it affected me deeply. I feel the physical interaction with the manga would enhance the experience.
I ended up really appreciating the balance of Ayako's political and personal stories, as they intertwined and supported each other for the better. Whenever Jiro's side of the story became a little grueling (I only ever slightly felt this in the beginning when he was spying on Naoko and her DPP meetings), the next chapter would switch back to Jiro's home life and relieve me of it's political content. But that's not to say the political content was bad, either. The political motivations behind Jiro's decisions and the people he worked for weaved beautifully with the Tenge clan's life.

Ayako is a fantastic manga, it was hard to put down and I read it quickly while making sure to process the detailed spreads and stories that Tezuka had to offer. Ayako is about a girl raised in a cellar set on the backdrop of post-war Japan. Tezuka's choice to make every character nearly unrelatable could have been a disaster and derail the whole manga; making it unreadable, but it was not. Ayako may have been our protagonist; in a miserable situation, but I would say that even she was somewhat unrelatable because of her circumstances. (But, as an audience, we sympathize with her the most. She is just a hard character to insert ourselves into. If anything, you feel more like a part of this depraved family.)

The Tenge clan is dysfunctional and disgusting, really. They abuse their women, shame their responsible men, and manipulate clan meetings to further their control on families. In fact, every woman has a tragic backstory or reason for their existence. Ayako is produced from Pa Tenge raping Su'e, Ichiro's wife. Ichiro gives Pa his wife in exchange for land! Foul! Naoko is involved with a DPP leader that is killed, Jiro is involved in the cover-up of his death. And poor O-ryo, she is disabled to a degree and from another one of Pa's "affairs."

In the beginning I briefly rooted for Jiro, I believed he too was a product of circumstance. But then he sought to kill O-Ryo and Ayako to cover up his crimes, proving he was almost as bad as the rest of the Tenge family. He clearly feels some guilt and responsibility towards the situation, however, because he later sends Ayako money.

Ayako has no concept of the real world, no concept of love, and even--successfully--approaches her brother for sex. Ayako's warped sense of reality is because of her upbringing, and I find it the most interesting aspect of her imprisonment. She even states something along the lines of: "down here is not the real world, we have different rules" when trying to seduce Shiro. We are then introduced to the complexities of circumstance throughout the manga. A character whom we kind of like, Shiro, is convinced to do something bad: sleep with his sister.

Shiro wasn't immune to the perversion and immorality interweaved within the Tenge family. However, I feel Shiro redeemed himself in the end when he makes the cave collapse because the family won't apologize to Ayako. This essentially creates a cellar for them to die in, a hole just like the one Ayako was forced to live in for 23 years. Again, we return to the concept that normal rules do not apply and Yamazaki's death is justified as well as Shiro sleeping with Ayako was justified in their situation. I like how Tezuka explored these grey complexities through the characters of Shiro and Ayako and their navigation of their life.

Ayako was an exploration of complete depravity, and I believe, how depravity is sanctioned. It's truly a sad series of circumstances that you can only watch unfold, helplessly, a bystander.